Was Rachel Fraser's novel about an upper class girl who seduces the consorts of friends she envies inspired by her sister?

Lady Antonia Fraser never strayed from Harold Pinter after their marriage

Lady Antonia Fraser's diaries do not answer this question.

Now 77, was she moved to start an affair with playwright Harold Pinter 35 years ago - while married to amiable, huntin'-shootin'-and-fishin' Tory MP Sir Hugh Fraser - to compete with her beautiful sister?

Rachel, ten years her junior, who was (and still is) married to fashionable Lancashire-born film-maker Kevin Billington is part of London's smart arts set.

Antonia first gave Pinter the come-on at a dinner party marking the opening of his play The Birthday Party, at Billington's house.

Some wonder if Rachel's 1974 novel Beautiful - about an upper class girl who seduces the consorts of friends she envies - may have been inspired by Antonia, if only unconsciously.

If this was Antonia's motive, the resulting romance was no flash in the pan. She never strayed from Pinter after they married.

Sensitive 44-yearold Scots actor Alan Cumming, has an OBE but worries - rather presumptuously you may feel - about how he and civil partner Grant Shaffer will cope with possible future honours like a knighthood.

'If you're a mixed-sex couple and one is knighted, the other becomes Lady something. But if it's two men, what does the other one become?'

'Lady' isn't quite right. Besides there are occasions when the partner of a gay knight plays, ahem, the male role in the relationship, rendering 'lady' inappropriate. Isn't life grand?

Former Labour bigwig Roy Hattersley and his crossbreed dog Buster, who has died aged 15, were regular visitors to Edinburgh's Balmoral Hotel.

Then a letter arrived from the manager saying it had been refurbished and dogs were no longer welcome.

Hattersley told Oldie lunch guests yesterday: 'Buster wrote to the manager complaining about the price rise and the ban on dogs.

He received a personal reply apologising, saying Buster was welcome and would be charged at the old rate. When we turned up Buster was welcomed and I was ignored.'

Mary Portas once ran into David Dimbleby when he was clad in his underpants

TV stylist Mary Portas, 49, says on Desert Island Discs that, while working as a window dresser at Harrods, she once ran into TV star David Dimbleby in the dressing rooms clad only in his underpants.

'I was a 22-year-old girl, going all purple - I was all flustered and left everything in the window and just ran.'

I don't imagine Mary's terror would be less if she encountered the old booby in his underpinnings now.

Tory leader David Cameron - was his face ironed for the new publicity photos, by the way? - blurted out during a Cameron Direct meeting in Hammersmith: 'Politicians say they don't look at the opinion polls - bulls***! Of course they do! We all do!'

Full marks for candour but is this appropriate language while speaking in a local church?